Page 47 of The Goblin and The Dancer
He twisted around, water streaming into his eyes as he looked around. Then he saw it.
It was the seashore. It was dim with fog, but the reassuring bar of sand was still there, like a pale arm extended to help them and beckon them home. Beyond the beach, crouched on a bluff of tossing sea grass, was the grey smudge of a fishing village.
The coast was some twenty miles away from the city, Grik realized dazedly. They could be back home in time for tea.
They were saved.
Rosanna let out an excited string of incomprehensible squeals and chopped at the water. Grik looked around, and his heart raced as his gaze snagged on some white shape bearing down on them from the bay.
Rosanna had clearly spotted the fishing boat first, for she was lunging up and down in the water, screaming and slapping at the waves to get the sailors’ attention. Grik joined her, raising his voice in a shout and waving a blunt hand.
“Oh, Grik!” Rosanna stopped hitting the water and reached out to grab Grik’s spare hand as she spat out a mouthful of water. “We’re going to live. We made it!”
A convenient wave pushed Grik into Rosanna, close enough to maybe kiss her from sheer joy and relief.
But before he could, she yanked her hand away and turned blazing eyes on him. “I am so mad at you.”
A swell slapped Grik in the face, sea water up his nose effectively dousing his ardor. “What did I do?” he protested.
“You were going to let yourself be eaten by that monster when I begged you not to! There’s such a thing as being too brave!”
“The poison was your idea,” Grik pointed out, but he wasn’t piqued in the least; he was too enamored with her unintended compliment to care that she was scolding him.
“I never would have said it if I had known you were going to let yourself be live bait!” Rosanna spit out another bit of water and then suddenly laughed. “We got out! Paul, we made it! Paul?”
Grik looked in all directions, and was rewarded by looking face-first into an oncoming wave that slapped him with a cold, uncompromising mouthful of briny sea.He dashed the water from his eyes and squinted at his cold grey surroundings.
The soldier was nowhere to be seen.
Grik’s heart squeezed inside his chest. No, not Paul. They had to all be together. They had gotten into this as a trio, and they should have gotten out of it as a trio. Paul had tried so hard, had struggled perhaps more than the rest of them, and he had come so close to getting out. It wasn’t fair.
Grik dove beneath the surface, trying to see through the murky sea, but no shape of a body revealed itself, no glimmer of scarlet jacket. Grik looked down into the endless depths and shook his head. No. No, it couldn’t be.
He came up for air, his breath coming in fast pants as he met Rosanna’s panicked gaze. How long had they been on the surface? A minute, at most. And they had only just now realized that Paul was missing? Grik hated himself; he would never forgive his carelessness.
“Paul?” Rosanna screamed, twisting around to search the empty sea. “Where are you, Paul?”
Grik swallowed and felt his eyes burn. The salt wasn’t only from the water.
Something cold and hard suddenly seized his ankle.
Grik’s pulse exploded.
The kraken! Somehow it had followed them out to sea!
“Swim for the boat!” Grik squeaked to Rosanna before he went under.
Dark water slid over his head, and his vision filled with a burst of white bubbles as a muffled stream of panicked air escaped him. He twisted around, his hands clenched into fists to face the thing that had seized him. He was determined to fight this monster till his last breath so that Rosanna could get away. He wouldn’t lose both Paul and Rosanna.
His swollen eyes strained through the dark water as he reached down to struggle with the thing grasping at him. And then he realized that he wasn’t holding a tentacle. He was holding a hand.
A blur of white face looked up at him through the murk.
It was Paul.
There was a swish of movement beside Grik. Rosanna had not swum away; she had dived and kicked over to help free Grik from whatever had grabbed him. The goblin heard her garbled gasp as she saw what was really beneath them.
Rosanna and Grik reached down and grabbed Paul under the arms. Together, the three of them kicked towards the surface and the light.
